Foundations had to be altered

My wife and I had thought of building a bread oven almost thirty years ago. However, it wasn’t until I retired recently that the idea re-emerged. After looking on the Net for ideas, we came across Rado’s web page and decided his pizza oven would double equally as a bread/baking oven.

Having purchased the DVD from Rado, all looked ‘reasonably’ easy and so it was until we decided to build the oven into a hill. Foundations had to be altered with the oven hearth tied in differently to the structure, due to the hill’s heavy clay, but as you can see, it all came together in the end.

The door works really well. I made it from second-hand 30mm hardwood lined with fibro sheeting and a 30mm hollow steel inner section. My handles enable to tilt back in two positions and provides good draft up through the ash drop opening and smoke to escape at the top, but seals off nicely when fully closed.

I fashioned my oven tools from things in my shed – one from an old brickies trowel (really useful), another from and old garden hoe, cut, bent and a piece of old ride -on mower blade riveted on to make a rake.

I bent a piece of metal rod into a poker-shape tool and attached it to a longer wooden handle, which also serves to pull/push trays/pots in and out of the oven. Lastly, of course, I adapted a mop head and and lengthened a bought peel and the timber handles being the most expensive part of the exercise. So have fashioned my own tools, as they are very exe to buy.

We are learning to use the oven to cook/bake a range of things, including different breads, cakes, biscuits, soup, casseroles, fish, meats and vegetables. However pizzas are yet to come :-)

Thanks to Rado and his DVD, we look forward to many great meals from our oven with family and friends.

Al and Raine
Gympie, Qld., Australia